CPS can check energy leaks

By Tracy Idell Hamilton

Updated 10:06 pm, Sunday, January 22, 2012

Photo: BOB OWEN, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

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Kirk Nuckols, Field Representative for CPS, sets up a blower door to check for air leaks in the home of Elisa M. Teveni. Casa Verde SA marks it's 3000th home to receive weatherization through the program partnered between CPS Energy and the City of San Antonio. The home of Elisa M. Teveni, 83, was the 3000th to receive the benefits of the program.

Kirk Nuckols, Field Representative for CPS, sets up a blower door to check for air leaks in the home of Elisa M. Teveni. Casa Verde SA marks it's 3000th home to receive weatherization through the program

Robert Martinez, Manager for Casa Verde Weatherization, holds a thermal imager camera which shows the heat from the hand print of Kirk Nuckols, Field Representative for CPS, after he removed his hand from the wall. Casa Verde SA marks it's 3000th home to receive weatherization through the program partnered between CPS Energy and the City of San Antonio. The home of Elisa M. Teveni, 83, was the 3000th to receive the benefits of the program. The infrared mark on the wall shows where the device is pointed.

Robert Martinez, Manager for Casa Verde Weatherization, holds a thermal imager camera which shows the heat from the hand print of Kirk Nuckols, Field Representative for CPS, after he removed his hand from the

CPS Energy is counting on people like Barbara Wright, who has a finely honed distaste for wasting money, in its ongoing efforts to save energy.

“We are not really green-green people, but I know where my money comes from, and I know where I want to spend it,” Wright said recently from the sunny yellow kitchen of the home she has owned with her husband for 18 years.

The Wrights recently availed themselves of CPS Energy's $95 home energy audit and have begun, little things first, to make their home more efficient.

The audit, which the utility says is a $600 value, is part of a larger effort to create an easy and affordable process to make energy-efficient improvements to the home.

CPS hopes to save a power plant's worth of energy by 2020 through conservation.

It partnered with the city for the residential energy-saving program, funded partially by a federal stimulus grant through the Department of Energy's Better Buildings program.

It dovetails with the DOE's goal of making buildings — which use 40 percent of all energy in the U.S. economy — more efficient, saving money and creating jobs.

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For the local program, the energy audit is the first step. Once complete, a homeowner will see which improvements make the most sense, from a cost-benefit standpoint.

The audit assigns a number, known as a SIR, for savings-to-investment ratio, to each improvement. A SIR above 1 is considered worth the investment.

In addition to the full audit, which takes several hours and includes a blower-door test that measures air leaks in the home, CPS offers a $25 walk-through with a professional. They'll also knock $5 off your bill for completing a do-it-yourself home-energy assessment.

CPS offers rebates for many of the recommended upgrades, such as replacing aging air conditioners, adding attic insulation and sealing leaky ductwork. Take on that trifecta and the utility will throw in an additional $1,250 incentive.

More than 1,100 customers have received audits so far, and of those, roughly a third has taken advantage of rebates.

For those who don't have additional cash for such purchases, CPS, through a partner, is offering low-interest loans of up to $20,000 for qualified borrowers.

Carla De La Chapa, CPS' Energy Savers manager, said the financing program's goal is to make sure each home is made at least 15 percent more efficient. The utility will work with homeowners to get them to that goal, she said, combining big-ticket upgrades, for example, with smaller fixes like changing light bulbs.

Those smaller fixes are where the Wrights have begun. They've replaced inefficient incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents and added weather stripping to the windows.

Their audit also suggested they replace their aging air conditioner, which the auditor called “way beyond its prime.”

But at a cost of several thousand dollars, the Wrights said they're waiting until their regular AC maintenance man suggests they upgrade.